Vital Needs
by PameliaCauas
Summary: He had a sore bruise in his heart, throbbing with uneasiness. And the harsh wind was just like a slap to his face that reminded him what he had to do. What he had planned to do before he met that lively, young and cheerful person who he admired in every possible way. And before he put her to the center of his life.
1. Chapter 1

Hey everyone! Püren here. You can just call me Koala if my name's hard for you to remember.  
This is the first fanfiction I'm writing in English, though I've been writing in my native language for more than six years now. Before reading this fiction, please keep in mind that I am not a native English speaker and there will most likely be mistakes. And I would really, really appreciate it if you pointed out any mistakes (spelling/grammar/meaning etc) and also helped me correct them. Thank you.

You can find the talented person who owns the cover image on tumblr, their url is **captaincrapster**, and I have the permission to use the image.

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Levi dragged the half-finished cigarette from his dry lips and decided not to finish that one, as it was the fifth in the last two hours he watched the sun rise, listening to Hanji's soft moaning. He didn't put it out, though, just left it there, on the ashtray, to burn away by itself.

He had prepared pancakes the night before, waiting for Hanji to come visit him as she did every Friday night. She had been a little late this time. Apparently her exams were coming up or something. She had still come, though, of course she did. She had come and ate half of the pancakes, making a mess in the process and had jumped straight into his arms, clinging to him just like a koala. Well, a huge one at that. But he hadn't really minded any of it. The mess, the chocolaty taste of her lips that were too sweet for him, her lying on his bed with her dirty clothes on… none of it.

He took the pancakes out of the fridge and microwaved them. He knew it was going to ruin the taste, but it didn't matter as Hanji would just soak the whole thing in chocolate sauce anyway. Just like she did the first time they met at that shitty brunch place or whatever. He didn't know what to call that place, really, but even after a year and a half, he still remembered every minute he spent there.

He pulled a pair of dark jeans on as he waited for the microwave to make that sound which meant that the meal was ready. He heard the _ding_ when he was done with the zipper. He went and stood in front of the closet, for once, he was going to choose what he'd be wearing. For once, he felt like he couldn't just wear a random shirt, so he slowly took the one that had the formula of coffee on it, with the word 'addicted' written below. The one Hanji gave him as a present on the National Coffee Day. He grinned slightly before he put the shirt and his leather jacket on.

Going back to the small kitchen side of the only room in the flat, he grabbed the chocolate sauce from some shelf, took the plate of pancakes out of the microwave and placed them both on the small wooden table.

When he went back to the side of the bed, he saw Hanji's sleeping face twitch a little. She still looked tired, which is why Levi was trying his best to keep quiet.

He got his shoes on.

He wasn't ready to have his shoes on.

He had his shoes on and he couldn't wait to take the next damn step.

Levi checked the time. It was 6:18 and he had been awake for more than two hours now. When he had woken up in the middle of the night with a sore throat to find out the window was open wide and the spring was being kind of mean to their nearly-naked bodies with all the wind, he realized that it was more than just a sore throat that woke him up. He also had a sore bruise in his _heart_, throbbing with uneasiness. And the harsh wind was just like a slap to his face that reminded him what he had to do. What he had _planned_ to do before he met that lively, young and cheerful person who he admired in every possible way. And before he put her to the center of his life.

So he waited.

He waited for her to wake up so that he could tell her why he had to do this, explain her how he felt and make sure that she understood every word of it. He covered her with an extra blanket and waited, sitting in front of the open window.

As he sat there, sharing the smoke of his each cigarette with the morning wind; watching the faint light of the sun fall on the ugly city he was in made him grow tired of waiting. And he decided to skip all the explanation part. It wasn't necessary in the first place, anyway. Because he knew full well that Hanji would understand. He knew that Hanji was clever enough to know this would happen someday. And, god, was she strong. Strong enough that she'd not be affected in any way. Strong enough to keep living on her own.

Thankfully, he had never been and would never be on her list of vital needs anyway.

So Levi just stood up on his two slightly trembling feet and got ready. Quick. And now he was standing beside the bed. Watching her calm features. He leaned in and gave her a kiss on the forehead.

"Hey," he whispered, "Your breakfast is on the table."

He left some cash on the bedside table before putting his wallet in his pocket.

"Hanji, I'm leaving."

* * *

I'm planning on writing more of this fiction, so I'd really love to see what you thought about it. And again, I'd really appreciate it if you helped me with my English in any way. Thank you all for reading! :


	2. Chapter 2

Hello everyone! I'm back here after a week. Just as I said, I'm going to continue writing this fiction and I decided to update it every week as long as college and responsibilities let me.

So here's the second chapter of Vital Needs. This chapter is entirely from Hanji's point of view. She reacalls the first time she met with Levi.

Please note that there will most likely be mistakes, because I am not a native English speaker.

* * *

"Hanji, I'm leaving."

I never would've thought it would be so simple. Well, I wasn't actually expecting a farewell with tight hugs, tender kisses, words and promises of how great our love is either. Our love isn't great (should I use "wasn't" now?). Now, looking back at it, did I even love him? He attracted my attention, but was I just attracted to how interesting he was the whole time or was it also the fact that he had the _smokiest_ voice I had ever heard and stuff like that, because, god, I can make a pretty long list of non-personality-related things that are attractive about Levi.

At first, though, I was just attracted to his attitude. It seemed so brave to me how fragile he was and how he didn't try to hide it, nor did he try to fix it. It was entirely new to me, because, come on, no one really let people know their weakness that easily. No, they'd try to hide it to their best. Rather, they'd know that they _should_ hide it for their own sake. But Levi just didn't seem to completely grasp the reality, like, at least seventy freaking percent of the time. I've never been so sure if he really couldn't understand how sad it was for a human being -though I thought it was somehow uniquely beautiful in his case- to be that fragile or he just chose not to care and bother to fix it. Did he even know that that was something that should be fixed sometime at all? Well, I never got to ask him in the end. I couldn't tell him how his mood isn't really considered _acceptable enough to not be fixed_ among society, either.

Speaking of _first_, I think it wouldn't hurt to remember the first time we met. It was less than two years, but more than a year ago. I was in 11th grade, it was a chilly November afternoon and I'd been totally lost, trying to go to school that day, as I was literally too sleepy to function in any way. I had taken the wrong bus and ended up in the middle of nowhere with a tired body and a growling stomach. So I decided to walk right into the first place that I could fill my stomach.

I dragged myself through the streets of that typical suburb out of the city. Then I finally saw a little place whose signboard said Macy's Grapy Brunch. There was a bunch of purple grapes on the left of the name and I had no idea in what way _grapes_ indicated anything about brunch or what a _grapy brunch_ was. It wasn't necessarily the best of the places I had had brunch before, but I couldn't care less. I went straight in. And fate did its thingy where it puts you in a slightly awkward situation that turns out to be rather lucky later on.

There were only three booths next to the windows and none of them were available. Everyone seemed to be passengers, talking about the long way they had come and the remaining road. There was only one person sitting by themselves in the first booth just beside the entrance and since their back was turned towards the door, I couldn't see their face. After figuring out the place didn't have a buffet, I went and sat across that person, who turned out to be a guy that was most likely in his late twenties. He was reading the newspaper he placed on the table, next to the plates and the cup of coffee that seemed to be nearly finished. A lovely lady brought the menu and I ordered whatever I saw first.

As I ate my brunch I took a look at the guy's newspaper, he was searching through job advertisements. He hadn't taken his eyes off the newspaper and looked up since I sat across him so I decided not to be a bother and kept eating quietly. Behind the counter, on the yellow wall, there was a huge framed photo of a beautiful but _very skinny_ girl. Right next to it was another frame which contained a text that was printed big enough so that it could be read from anywhere in the little brunch place. According to the text, the girl's name was Macy and she was the daughter of the lovely, old couple that managed the place. Macy had died from anorexia. When she was little, she had always eaten grapes for brunch. That was why the little place was called Macy's Grapy Brunch, to honor her memory.

"It's sad." I said, when I was finished reading the text. I still couldn't take my eyes off of her photo. I wasn't expecting to get an answer, I was actually just talking to myself there. But I heard a low voice, asking:

"What is?"

"Macy's story." I said simply, and nodded towards the counter.

"Oh," the person sitting across me said, after taking a look at the two frames, "I read those, like, twenty minutes ago. It sure is sad. I'm surprised those people can still be so cheerful. It must be hard." He answered.

This was the start of our conversation. Then we talked about how awesome the grape pie was and how they actually served grapes with literally everything you ordered and it somehow turned out to go great with them all. It was like a miracle! They even gave you grapes with your egg. And even then it was magically delicious when you tried the two together. So we just started tasting things from each other's plates to find out how they tasted with grapes and after like an hour or so, we were ordering more from the menu, just to try them with grapes.

I had eaten grapes with a pancake and a pond of chocolate sauce. It was awesome. Though the guy whose name I still didn't know thought it looked plain gross with that much chocolate sauce.

When it was finally five and the place was to be closed for the day, we were kindly asked by those two precious people to leave. So we thanked them, sent our prayers out for Macy -though I doubt he knew what to say for a prayer, because neither did I- and when it came to paying for all the things we had eaten -it was quite a lot, don't ask- it turns out that I didn't have my _fucking purse_ with me. So he had to pay for _everything._ Can you guys comprehend what this means? We had literally eaten every single thing we saw on the menu that day.

"Thank you so much!" I had literally bowed down with shame in front of him when we left Macy's. "Well then, I'll help you look for a job, and introduce you to a kind real estate agent I know."

"Wait, how do you know I need a place?"

"You're wearing a hotel's wristband."

He checked his wrist out as a reflex and looked kind of surprised I noticed that. I just kept smiling and walking next to him. And then I realized that I didn't have the tiniest clue where the heck I was and didn't know how I was going to get back to the city. I couldn't help but let the realization take over my expression, which didn't go unnoticed. I silently cursed my stupidity.

"What is it?" He asked.

"Uh…" _It's just that I'm a gigantic idiot_, my inner voiced answered as I started to rub the back of my head and gave him a pathetically silly grin, "I don't know how to get back to the city from here. And you know how I don't have a single penny with me… Ha ha."_ I'm a goddamn moron_.

"Oh. It's okay, I'll give you a lift."

"Really?" I could've _cried_. "Thank you, thank you, thank you so much!"

I opened my eyes, slowly forced my tired limbs to straighten my back and took a look at Levi's small flat with my blurred vision. Everything seemed to be in place for a second, until the bitter realization hit me. Everything was in place, except for him.

Levi was gone.

* * *

I'm planning on writing more of this fiction, so I'd really love to see what you thought about it. And again, I'd really appreciate it if you helped me with my English in any way. Thank you all for reading! :


	3. Chapter 3 Part I

Hello everyone! I apologize for the late update, college and friends are taking a lot of my time. I had been working on this chapter for five days and it was still not finished so, today, I decided to seperate it to two parts as it would be too long otherwise. You're going to meet two more characters in this chapter, any guesses? *pretends like it is not obvious in the character tags* Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

**Four Years Later**

Levi watched the awakening city through the windows of the taxi. The buildings and the streets seemed to be all the same and entirely different at the same time as the sunlight gently fluttered them. It felt like he was paying a visit to an old acquaintance.

Four years. Four years was a long time.

When he finally left the cab, he felt a calm breeze embracing his wayworn body and suddenly everything was very familiar. So familiar that he, for a moment, thought the four long years had never passed. But they did. And the building he was staring at right now was probably not the same at all. There were cracks on the side of one balcony, for one thing. The grey painting was now fairly dirty. The dog on the second floor didn't seem to be in its doghouse and it was obvious that the lonely doghouse was not being used anymore.

That's the thing about time, it manipulates you to think everything is okay as it passes. You never realize that once you take a step forward, you can never again find what you had left behind when you look back. You watch yourself get older and worn out every day without actually seeing it.

You tell yourself that it is fine, that you must stay away to heal however long it takes. And in the end, all you have is four lost years, and a longing that eats at you until you make the decision to walk back all those steps.

And that longing to wake up next to Hanji still ate away at Levi.

He went inside and climbed to the fifth floor. He was now waiting in front of a certain door, staring at the nameplate which said "Zoë". The doorbell seemed kind of scary, so he went for the doorknob instead. One, two and three knocks. His heart was literally pounding by the time he heard the door being unlocked.

It opened.

And there stood a –_oh, wow, that guy's gotta be at least two meters._

"Good morning?" the tall, blond guy in plain powder blue pyjamas said-more like asked, his voice hoarse from sleeping. His hair was a mess and everything about him just screamed _sleepy._

"Morning." Levi said after forty seconds of staying quiet due to being confused over why there would be a _guy_ in _Hanji's house_, answering the door instead of _her._ He didn't look like a relative at all, because Levi knew her whole family from the photos and they all had fairly darker skin and hair colour, just like Hanji. And she couldn't have moved, right? The nameplate still had her name. But then he thought, _why wouldn't there?_

"Who are you?" the guy asked as he figured out Levi was not planning on talking.

They heard a female voice calling "Mike, Mike you're making the bed!" It was coming from some other room and was getting closer with each word.

The guy didn't say anything and kept staring at Levi, which made him feel uncomfortable and blurt out the answer rather nervously. Because he was sure he had heard Hanji's voice just now.

"I was looking for Hanji, my name is-"

"_Levi."_

Hanji unintentionally finished the sentence for him.

The two looked at each other's eyes, neither daring to say a single word

Hanji had grown even taller, Levi realized. Her features looked more like a young adult's than the teenage girl he remembered. She was wearing a white t-shirt with dark blue shorts, which apparently were her pyjamas and her long brown hair was sloppily tied at the back of her head. She wore an extremely surprised expression, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. She didn't seem to be breathing as she dragged the hand that held a toothbrush to her face and adjusted her glasses.

"Y-you…"

"Good morning, Hanji." Levi said, his voice deep and very, very low. As if he did not want to be heard.

"Good morning." She said, after blinking for the first time since she saw Levi's face. "What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you."

"Yeah, okay, so… I'll get changed and then we can, um, we can go out somewhere, yeah. The house is too crowded right now, so, yeah... Oh, and, by the way, this, this is my roommate, Mike. Mike, Levi. Yes. Levi, just – just wait there."

She was stuttering but she didn't seem to be excited or anything. It was more of a _ugh what is happening, why is this happening, do I really have to deal with this _sort of stutter, at least that was what Levi thought.

When she disappeared to the inner parts of the house that couldn't be seen from where he stood, Mike cleared his throat, still standing by the door.

"So you're Levi."

Levi had to tilt his head so that he could look at Mike's face.

"Yes," he answered "Nice to meet you."

"Yeah." Mike said simply.

No one spoke another word during the short while they had to wait there. She finally came back with a brown trenchcoat on and a green scarf around her neck. She took a set of keys off the counter and started to tie her shoelaces.

"Tell Eren I'm taking the car."

"No, you can't!" a protesting teenage boy's raging voice came from inside of the house.

"I'm supposed to take Armin to school today, we have a date afterwards!"

"It's okay." She shouted back, "Armin wouldn't mind if you took a cab instead."

A guy that seemed to be only a few ages younger than Hanji came rushing to the hall.

"What? Don't you know how expensive taking a cab is? Hanji I'm a _student_ for christ's sake!"

"That, dear, is not my problem." She was done with her shoes now.

As the boy went back into the house, looking extremely depressed, he was mumbling to himself: "Oh, man… I'm screwed…"

Just as Hanji was leaving the house, Mike calmly touched her shoulder and she turned her face to him and stopped moving.

"I'll be okay." She whispered and gave him a tiny smile. Levi said _bye_ to Mike, not getting a response other than a nod. He watched the two go for a while and then closed the door when they were inside the elevator.

The car drive was very quiet, some comments about the weather here and there. Levi asked Hanji about the dog on the second floor and she informed him that it had died two years ago. They talked about Hanji's aunt and her husband moving to another city by the sea, leaving Hanji alone since she was a grown up now. After being asked about her studies and the university, Hanji told Levi that she was majoring in Biological Sciences and minoring in Biochemistry and this was actually her last year.

From the very beginning of the ride, Levi recognized all the roads they passed, each street and every single turn they took. They all must be leading to _that place,_ he thought. He was somewhat _hoping_ they did. Because then it could mean that he was not entirely forgotten, that Hanji wanted to keep something of him and that she was _still_ holding on to it – and what a huge _thing_ it would be to keep _a house_. That would mean she had wanted to keep _not just something_, right? That would mean she wanted to keep _all their memories_.

Because that was all he wanted to do since the very first step he took out of that house. Out of their relationship. Out of her life.

So when Hanji finally parked the car, Levi could literally hear his heart beating rather _madly _inside his chest. He had been right. That was the parking space of the building he used to live in four years ago.

* * *

So, I can't say I'm entirely happy with this chapter because the writing process didn't go as it would have if I was writing in my native language. But that is all I can manage right now, so, yeah, I'm sorry.

About Mike's height, I used 'meters' because that is what they use in Japanese and also in my mother tongue. You all know Levi meant he was huge. And about Hanji studies, I'm, again, very sorry if there's anything wrong with those. I'm a translation student and I have no idea about the other departments and how majors/minors work in those. Feel free to correct me!

Thank you all for reading, I appreciate all the kudos and comments. Please comment and let me know what you think and don't hesitate to point out any mistakes.


	4. Chapter 3 Part II

Hey, everyone!

Please, each and every one of you, take an egg or two and feel free to throw them at my face. I am so very really sorry about this - for not updating the fiction for such a long time. I'm very busy during the school year and on summer vacation, I had no inspiration, none at all. But here's a new chapter. Please enjoy, if it's any good at all.

* * *

"So you kept this place?" Levi asked, as he climbed the stairs, following behind Hanji. It was more like a statement or a confirmation type of asking. He didn't want a response.

"Yeah," Hanji said, "It's kind of like my study room right now. It's hard to find peace in a place with two more students sometimes, so I just come here."

"They're both your flatmates, then. Mike and Eren."

"Yeah."

Yeah. Only _yeah, _Levi thought, no additional information. Which was not Hanji at all, because she always explained things, like she explained for what purpose she used the room right now even though Levi didn't ask.

"Eren looked a little younger." Levi said, he actually wanted to know more about how well Hanji really was and how she had been doing and if she had better people around her now – ones better than he had been, but he didn't really have the guts to ask that right away like he deserved to be worried about her in the first place, so he was just trying to make use of Hanji's habit of talking too much about things.

"He's three years younger than me, I guess. I tutored him through his last two years in high school and now he's a first year in the same college as me, same major, too. His father's loaded but he won't let Eren live by himself. He thinks Eren would fail his classes without my help… which is not very wrong."

Levi snorted. Briefly.

"Is Mike going to the same college with you, too?" he asked.

"Yes, he's been my classmate on the most important subjects from the start. Still is. Same major and same minor, too."

"Wow," Levi said, "You guys must be very close." That, he didn't actually want to say but the words slipped out of his stupid mouth and now he was scared to hear the answer. He wanted to calmly slap his own sorry face for even being scared, _like he deserved to be wishing anything less then her happiness._

Hanji didn't answer that one immediately. She took five quick steps up the stairs and then said "Mhmm."

And Levi left it at that, as they reached the door of his old flat, which was now Hanji's. On the door, the name 'Zoë' was written with gold letters just like it was on the door of her actual apartment. Now that he thought, his name had never been there.

When Hanji opened the door, she didn't hold it for Levi and went right in instead. Levi followed, slowly. Looking around and taking in the changes.

Firstly, there sure were _a lot_ of books. The little flat looked like it was some kind of book storage room. It looked to Levi -who somehow managed to close the door behind himself without knocking any books down and was now standing on the entrance, refusing to take a step- impossible to move around with the piles of books lying on the floor. By now, Hanji had already stripped off her coat and placed it on the armrest of an old brown couch he'd never seen before, whose colour had long faded. It was placed on the small area between the kitchen counter and the bed, which he remembered to be unfurnished when he left. He followed the path Hanji had just followed and managed to arrive behind the couch. By the time he was there, she was collecting some of the books from the surface of the couch to clear some place to sit. She was still messy, at least that did not change.

"Sorry for the mess, no one ever comes here other than me." she said, placing the books in her arms on top of another book pile resting on the nightstand just next to the bed.

_Their bed._

He felt a sudden and very strong feeling of familiarity which brought with it the warmth he never once felt anywhere other than in her arms, but in a second, it was all gone and replaced by the exact opposite of that feeling of familiarity.

Nothing in the room belonged to _them_ now, though once they did, years ago.

Nothing belonged to _him_ anymore, just to his memories. He had left it all behind back then, hadn't he?

Seeing Levi silent and somehow deep in thought, Hanji awkwardly continued,

"Um, I hope this is okay, what I did with the room... I never thought you'd..." _come back._

"It's okay. It's– okay. The room is yours, after all. Not mine, not anymore."

"You wanna, uh, have a seat?" she asked, gesturing to the couch.

"Sure. Thanks." said Levi, sitting.

After a short period of half-comfortable silence and not looking each other's direction, during which Levi tried hard to keep his mind off the memories brought by seeing the place, Hanji said,

"I'll make coffee." and stumbled to the kitchen. Levi didn't dare look back, to where she was now.

And there it was, a memory started playing in his mind.

It was from the time they first hired Levi's flat. There were no lamps yet and it was after noon so the room was dark. They were going to have coffee, Hanji sitting on the kitchen counter and Levi preparing both their coffees. It had been two days since they'd met.

Before coming to the flat after they took the keys, they stopped by a store to buy various things Levi needed, an extensive list of cleaning products taking the first place, followed by some snacks, a bag full of coffee, a kettle and two brown coffee mugs.

After Levi cleaned the kettle, the mugs, the sink and the counter top carefully with hot water and a half bottle of dish soup and Hanji wiped them dry, they were both tired and in _urgent need of coffee_. Levi poured hot water into their new and pleasantly large mugs and added a few teaspoons of coffee each. After he stirred the coffees, he handed one of the mugs to Hanji, who had been watching the whole process.

She looked confused.

"That's not how you make coffee!"

"Uh, is there any other way?"

"Of course there is, silly. You add sugar!"

Levi found himself watching Hanji make their coffees now with no sugar. And as she approached him with two white mugs in hand, handing one to Levi and taking a seat on the bed, opposite him, he asked;

"I see you don't add sugar anymore?"

"Uh..." she started, being lost for a few seconds "Yeah."

Silence.

"Are those books all yours?"

"I got most of them when my grandpa passed away, he and grandma used to read a lot. Then part of them is from a professor I really respect. And the rest are mine."

"You've read them all?"

"No, not yet."

Silence, again.

"I think as far as today will get is a cup of black coffee and an apology that I can not coat with any sweet words to cover the bitterness up, huh? I am sorry, Hanji."

* * *

So, here it is. Please feel free to point out &amp; correct any mistakes and let me know what you thought about this chapter/ about the whole fiction so far.

I can not set a pattern for how often this fiction will be updated or when the next update will be. I'm very sorry.

You can always go to my ask box on tumblr, about anything (my url is 'vivalakoala').

Thank you all for reading and a bunch of thanks to those who left kudos, who commented and who bookmarked Vital Needs.

See you next time, guys, I promise there will be one!


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